You are Writing Your Child’s Memoir
Two birds attacking.
When parents divorce, it’s as if a new chapter is being written in their child’s life. This chapter, while inevitable for many families, can take vastly different tones depending on how the separation is handled. For children, their understanding of family, relationships, and even themselves is deeply influenced by the dynamics they experience during this time.
Protect Your Children from Conflict
High-conflict divorces often create a sense of instability in a child’s “story.” Arguments, resentment, or a lack of communication between parents can leave children feeling torn between loyalty to one parent or the other. They may internalize the conflict, blaming themselves for the breakdown of the family. Over time, this can affect their emotional well-being, self-esteem, and even their ability to form healthy relationships in adulthood.
Renowned psychologist, professor, and expert in the field of parenting describes the impact of conflict in his book, two homes, ONE CHILDHOOD – A Parenting Plan to Last a Lifetime. Emery tells us that numerous studies have concluded that children from low-conflict divorce do better than children from high-conflict divorce who end up having more emotional problems. See my Book Review below. A link to this book can be found in my Resources Section.
Protect your children from conflict. The amount and type of conflict that you inflict upon your children is up to you. You can control it. And there are ways to manage conflict and emotions that don’t impact your children for the rest of their lives. Your child’s “story” depends on it.
Book Review
two homes, ONE CHILDHOOD – A Parenting Plan to Last a Lifetime by Robert E. Emery, Ph.D.
This wonderfully enlightening and empowering book by pre-eminent clinical psychologist, professor, researcher, divorce mediator and parenting coordinator, Dr. Robert Emery, has two broad themes.
First, the focus on the child’s need to be loved and supported and able to focus on having a joyful and innocent childhood. This means consistency, love and a lack of conflict. This concept is further explored in Emery’s earlier book, The Truth About Children and Divorce.
The second focus is on the concept that a parenting plan needs to grow and evolve as the child develops and as the parents’ circumstances change. Emery provides detailed developmental milestones, needs, and abilities for each stage of your child’s life and guides parents to create optimal parenting plans for their individual child.
My takeaways are two-fold:
First, children from low-conflict divorce do better than children from high-conflict divorce who end up having more emotional problems. Protect your children from conflict. The amount and type of conflict that you inflict upon your children is up to you. You can control it. And there are ways to manage conflict and emotions that don’t impact your children for the rest of their lives.
And second, children do not measure parenting time. Percentages don’t matter. Good parents matter. Love matters.
